2001 (TU)
Events * The Triton Foundation stuns the world when it implants the first synthetic bladder. * Novation Toys, Games and Comics is founded. * Dr. Altaz Zia, while working for Horizon Pharmaceuticals, realizes that taint is not a problem, but the key to unlocking the potential of novas. With this realization, he erupts. * Elliot Stinson is selected as the US' Assistant Secretary of Defense. * Jennifer Portman, wife of The Fireman, becomes a minor expert in all things nova purely in self-defense. * Membership in the Church of the Immanent Escheaton dwindles as baselines adapt to the presence of novas, and the 2001 millennial disasters fail to manifest. * The DeVries Agency succeeds in one of its recruitment goals as it begins hiring nova doctors and former Rashoud facility staff. * Nations begin to fight wars through nova elite proxies. * Holger DeVries teaches his daughter Anna how to run a business. * Totentanz kills Slag in Nigeria. * Zaire's President Laurent Kabila only has time to rename the country the Democratic Republic of Congo before being deposed. * Early this year, the Belgian National Congress has graduated to the status of major political power. * Pope John Paul II dies. A Conclave is held, electing Benedict XVI as the new Pope, contrary to the hopes of Opus Dei. * The State of New York v. Gambione (likely at some point after the November roundup of the Five Families) extends the 1921 Burdeau v. McDowell decision to cover novas acting as private citizens. * US v. Piero Giorie (likely at some point after the November roundup of the Five Families) has Giorie angry that "Utopia freaks" have been reading his mind. January * Petr Ilyanovich approaches Calvin Lathrop, chairman of Great Britain's Intelligence and Security Committee, and invites him (and a few trusted agents) to join the Directive. * Lambert Asani, son of Congo diamond magnate Mente Asani, and his three brothers travel the world meeting with novas who could help Lambert's goal of deposing Congo president Laurent Kabila. * January 24: Project Utopia-mediated negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Liberation Organization open. The talks eventually end with the singing of the London Peace Accord. March * Lambert Asani has assembled the rest of the "Six Heads" of his ironically named "Belgian National Congress." President Laurent Kabila is overthrown by the end of the month. * March 18: Utopia announces that bioremedial bacteria recently introduced in the world's oceans, along with a large amount of physical cleanup, will restore the water quality of the world's oceans to pre-Industrial Revolution levels by 2006. * March 29: The Russian Confederation rises from the political and economic chaos caused by the Moscow Crash of 1999. Russia's downward spiral reverses, albeit slowly, thanks to nova "economic savant" and Minister of the Treasury Vladimir Sierka. The reorganized Confederation ("RusCon" for short) consists of sovereign member states allied for purposes of economic strength and foreign relations. The Confederation has one currency, the ruble, and representations of each RusCon member-state vote on all foreign trade decisions. The Confederation retains its seat on the UN Security Council, but the member states are represented individually in the General Assembly. In effect, the RusCon functions somewhat like a cross between the European Union and the United States of America. Belarus president Andrei Srebrianski is officially elected the first Confederation president, but rumors continue in the press that Minister Sierka is the true leader of the RusCon. April * Covert Action News reports on "Utopia's Real Agenda" in the London peace talks: to spy on Israel's (rumored) clandestine corps of novas, and to maintain its quasi-monopoly on organized nova force. * From his new home in Madrid, Laurent Kabila formally announces his retirement as president of the Congo. Lambert Asani proclaims himself president and, like Joseph Mobutu before him, adopts the suffixname "Sesé Seko Kuko Ngbendu waza Banga" ("the almighty warrior who, because of his endurance and inflexible will, goes from conquest to conquest leaving fire in his wake"). May *''May-November'': Brushfire wars sweep through sub-Saharan West Africa, as Sierra Leone, Nigeria and the Sudan use nova mercenaries, dubbed "elites" by the press, to fight as proxies. While fewer than a dozen elites die in the conflicts, hundreds of civilians are killed as "collateral damage," and the political borders of Africa are redrawn several times throughout the months of conflict. Team Tomorrow takes peacekeeping actions on behalf of the UN and finally negotiates a ceasefire. Press coverage of the conflicts becomes the highest-rated television event of the decade, so far. Various conspiracy theorists claim that the conflicts were instigated by the US and other major powers so they could see how effective novas were when used as military operatives. * The "Equatorial Wars," as the fighting is later dubbed, prompt international negotiations concerning the use of novas in military applications. While the talks are never formalized, the UN and Project Utopia openly support discussion on the issue. International consensus falls short of banning the use of novas in the military, but it is generally agreed that due to the unpredictable nature of novas' powers, they should not be used against civilian or normal military targets unless in all-out war. Strategists and academics quickly devise a new school of military deterrent thought based around novas and formalize the idea of limited-scale conflicts fought by nova proxies. General acceptance of this idea, as an economical alternative to certain types of conventional conflicts, leads to large numbers of elites being contracted by world governments in the following year. * Shrapnel, already a cold killer, serves in the Equatorial Wars, taking great pleasure in tormenting the baselines she is supposedly there to save. XX * The DeVries Agency hires out almost 15 nova mercenaries. * May 1: The Sternych Missive, in which Petr Ilyanovich, Calvin Lathrop and Mitsu Nakamura lay out for Eliot Stinson's perusal the case for the Directive and for US involvement therein. * May 2: A CNN news report on the Equatorial Wars' beginning mentions that T2Mer Angie "Luna" O'Connor was among Utopia's casualties. * May 12: The Utopia-brokered talks between Israel and Palestine end with the signing of the London Peace Accord, which establishes a Palestinian state along the border of Israel and Egypt. Project Utopia agrees, as part of the Accord, to monitor the newly created border, although Israel is rumored to have almost a dozen novas under its direct control. * May 15: In the wake of the London Peace Accord, Utopia enjoys even greater approval than before (a thing most would have sworn was mathematically impossible). * May 21: The Triton Foundation announces a gene-therapy treatment for prostate cancer and a genetic screening process that predicts (with 94% accuracy) whether a person will develop any of the common forms of cancer. June * June 10: Representatives from the United States, the Russian Confederation, the United Kingdom and Japan meet in Moscow. They agree to form and sponsor a multinational intelligence agency, which they term "the Directive." The Directive's primary mission is to monitor the activities of Project Utopia and the world's growing population of novas. * June 11: The Newark Police Department receives a call from an apartment building regarding a burning smell coming from an apartment. Police enter the apartment (belonging to Eileen Dunkowski and find the body of a Mr. Harold Bengotti tied to a chair with an iron (switched on) left on his chest. Ms. Dunkowski is reported missing. Bengotti had ties to the Camparelli criminal syndicate. July * July 17: Talk radio's Jordan McDevitt insists to "Larry from Louisville" that the Equatorial Wars are a setup. "All those countries, like Nigeria and Sierra Leone and all, where'd they get the money to hire all those elites?...I think the answer's pretty simple -- the good ol' U-S-of-A....They wanted to find out how T2M stood up in an out-and-out battle." August * August 7: Anibál Buendia, a nova with the ability to reconfigure his cellular structure, first secretes the polymer known as "eufiber." This material, which has the ability to bond with nova cell structure and channel and redirect quantum and bio-energies, becomes the most popular fashion accessory for novas and the wealthy. As a side effect, studies of eufiber enable advances in the development of optic cable technology. October * Project Utopia forms a World Organized Crime and Terrorism Task Force which will coordinate with law-enforcement agencies from around the world (Interpol, FBI, DEA, Scotland Yard, Mossad) to combat organized crime and terrorism. Team Tomorrow proceeds to cut a swath through organized crime in the US as well as Europe. * It takes very little time for Team Tomorrow to identify and halt the flow of drugs into the US. Hospitals report an enormous jump in the number of cocaine withdrawal patients, which Project Utopia takes as proof that everything's working. * Citing increasing tension with the United States government, Project Utopia announces its intention to relocate its headquarters from New York City to Venice, Italy. November * November 3: Dr. Nimal Dharmasena records, in her journal, the thought processes that have led up to her decision to sign on with Project Utopia.Aberrant: Unknown book * November 7: Caestus Pax announces in a press release that, as of this morning (around 10:00am), the members of all five "families" of the New York City Mafia have been arrested by a joint task-force made up of Team Tomorrow, the FBI, and the NYPD. Pax assures Wolf Blitzer and Cokie Roberts that the charges will stick. * Newsweek reports on the "End of the Five Families" of the New York Mafia, all of whom (from the capo di tutti capi down to the lowest button man) were busted by a Team Tomorrow/FBI/NYPD task force. By the end of the year, the organizations of Camparelli and Zukhov are virtually all that remains. December * The DeVries Agency publicly announces that it will no longer be handling combat elites: they will be handled by a new corporate entity, DeVries National Tactical Solutions. * December 10: Talk radio's Jordan McDevitt Show invites listeners to weigh in on the topic of "legal restrictions for novas, good idea or bad precedent?" Dan from Philadelphia is glad T2M did an end-run around the law to cripple the New York Mafia; Richard in New Jersey is equally happy about that, but less sanguine about what happens when (not if, but when) T2M decides to enforce much tighter codes of behavior, on ordinary citizens. * December 31: Æon Society census reports approximately 2100 known novas in the world population. Notes * In Aberrant Worldwide: Phase II, Caroline Mantebe remarks that "Opus Dei watched its advantage vanish in a puff of white smoke at the 2001 Conclave". This implies that in the Trinity Universe, Pope John Paul II died in 2001, not in 2005 as in our timeline. References Category:Trinity Universe timeline